


Choice of Client

by Alona



Category: Nero Wolfe - Rex Stout
Genre: Case Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-16 14:57:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15439596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alona/pseuds/Alona
Summary: Archie knows something's up when Wolfe overlooks a number of compelling excuses to turn down two potential clients who both want him to find the same murderer.





	Choice of Client

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Delphi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/gifts).



**I**

When the phone rang that Thursday night just before ten, it intruded upon as perfect a domestic scene as you could like. We had just wrapped up a complicated and lucrative case with honors all around, and while we were not crowing, we were certainly resting comfortably on our own, and each other's, laurels. Wolfe having been obliged to send me to Palm Beach to run down a final piece of the puzzle, I had returned that afternoon, in time to put my foot over the threshold as he was coming down from his afternoon session with the plants. He had met me in the hall, shaken my hand, and repeated the "Satisfactory." he had already delivered over the phone when I had reported my success, and then asked how my shoulder was: a week ago I had sprained it in a chase and subsequent struggle with a thief, and it still felt about the way you'd imagine a broken collarbone would feel if you'd never had one. From his effusiveness you might reasonably conclude that my flight had run a gauntlet of treacherous air currents and freak storms all the way up the coast, but no. Planes in Wolfe's world were not to be trusted, and he didn't like me to be away from home. 

We'd wrapped up what little needed wrapping, and now Nero Wolfe, seated in his favorite chair, was working on his second bottle of beer since dinner and from time to time reading out objectionable passages from the book he was having great fun scorning; I, writing up an expense report at my desk, was contributing whatever remarks happened to occur to me in response. 

The phone rang. 

Our eyes met, and he muttered, "I trust that isn't Mr. Cramer with bad news."

It would have been something if the cops had fumbled the neatly wrapped package we'd delivered to them, but neither of us seriously believed it. 

I told the phone, "Nero Wolfe's residence, Archie Goodwin speaking."

The woman on the line told me her name, and I recognized it. 

"Oh. We can't help you, Mrs. Bishop. My apologies." 

"Oh, I know Nero Wolfe doesn't touch divorce cases. This isn't about that. It's much more important. I want to hire him to investigate the murder of Amos Cooke and Northrup Spencer." 

"Give it to me again." 

"I want Nero Wolfe to find out who killed Amos Cooke and Dr. Spencer."

"What makes you think it was the same person?"

"I can't talk about it on the phone." She had a thrilling voice overflowing with emotion; apart from that it was nice to listen to. "I simply can't." 

"Please hold." 

I set the phone aside. 

Wolfe was watching me narrowly. "Is that Mrs. Thomas Bishop?"

"The same. And there's no need for that voice, she's already specified that it isn't about the divorce. Get this: she wants you to find out the murderer of Amos Cooke and Northrup Spencer."

It took him a moment, as it had taken me. Then he demonstrated that he could read the papers and remember what they said about murders even with one of our own on:

"Mr. Cooke, a White Plains lawyer, was poisoned in his home last Friday—arsenic. Dr. Spencer, a professor of physics at Columbia, was shot coming home Tuesday night. Does Mrs. Bishop hold the same perpetrator to be responsible for both performances?"

"That's the idea. She won't spill the rest over the phone." 

"Is she a lunatic or merely a nuisance, Archie?"

"Hard to say. You might have it that she wouldn't be involved in that very public legal tangle if she wasn't one or the other." 

"And I would almost certainly be right. If you had to opine?"

I shrugged. "I could use the laugh, if it's lunatic, and if she turns out to be a nuisance we can always put her out."

I wasn't expecting much. He had the perfect excuse not to pick up new work, even if it had been a safer bet than this; I admit however that I was curious. It must have come out in my face or voice, and Wolfe must have been feeling unusually indulgent. 

"We may be able to satisfy your inquisitiveness without ruining the whole day." He sighed. "Tell Mrs. Bishop to be here at eleven tomorrow morning. There is at least a shred of hope that she will have a cogent account prepared for us, and a viable case." 

I picked up the phone and communicated the instruction, but not the hope, to Mrs. Bishop. She confirmed the address and hung up. 

Wolfe finished his beer and rang for another bottle. When Fritz had come with it, he told me to bring copies of the papers starting Saturday—that being the earliest the Cooke murder was reported. "I'm sufficiently acquainted with the Bishop melodrama not to require a refresher," he added morosely. 

The melodrama came down to not much more than this: after ten years of marriage Thomas and Hilda Bishop were now dragging each other through the courts on the strength of some damning photographs supplied to Mrs. Bishop by one of our lesser professional brethren. Because Thomas Bishop looked like a film star and had inherited a fortune dating back all the way to the eighteen-seventies, and because in the before times Miss Hilda DeVries had been a debutante with markedly morbid taste in charitable causes, the public took an interest in all the gory details. 

Between us we went through all the mentions of both murders in the papers; the police had covered all the likely angles and come up empty. It looked to me like two separate murders and two very different murderers. 

"The arsenic was in his after-dinner coffee, and there was almost too much of it," I summarized. "That looks like an incompetent murderer with an in to the household, and one who knew Cooke's habits. He favored one particular coffee cup. The stuff wasn't anywhere else." 

"Not incompetent," Wolfe quibbled. "Competent enough to meet his needs, and no further. Dr. Spencer's attacker would appear to be of a bolder breed—Spencer took two shots to the chest upon entering the lobby of his apartment building on Ninety-second Street by Amsterdam Avenue, at eleven twenty-three. The doorman had stepped out. He and other witnesses heard the shots but didn't see the shooter." 

"I guess a sharpshooter with nerves of steel could still fumble a dose of poison. Seems screwy, though." 

"Indeed. That woman must be demented." 

"Right. You want me to call her back to cancel? Of course she may have gone to bed by now, to get her beauty sleep before she sees you, but—"

"Confound it. No. I won't give you the satisfaction. Let her come." 

That was the last word on it. By the time we went up to bed around midnight, we had filed away every bit of information available about both murders, and I wouldn't have bet a nickel on Mrs. Bishop having something we could use.

**II**

Even before it was over I started to suspect he'd worked it out that night from something he'd read in the papers, facts or no facts. It was the best explanation for why he was so calm about the chaos the next day: he'd already smelled a chance to earn his fee. I am waiting until I can figure out for myself what tipped him off before charging him with it. 

The first change to the script came at a quarter to eleven when the doorbell rang, while I was massaging my shoulder and digesting a few tidbits about the Bishop divorce I'd cadged off Lon Cohen at the _Gazette_. I knew it couldn't be Mrs. Bishop, because instead of showing her in, Fritz came to the office alone. 

"Archie, you're needed. A gentleman wishes to see Mr. Wolfe as soon as possible. He refuses to leave." 

I nodded and went to the door. Standing on the stoop was a man around thirty-five who would have been handsome and personable if he had got any sleep in the last week. I cracked open the door and asked if I could help him. 

"I'm Tommy—Thomas Bishop," he told me, unnecessarily, despite the wringer he'd been through. "I have legitimate business here. I want to hire Nero Wolfe to investigate two murders, the murders of Amos Cooke and Northrup Spencer. It's my mess," he went on, his voice getting hoarse. "I can't let Hilda do this." 

That answered my first burning question: did he know his wife was coming. The second was what to do about him. Properly I should have left him to stew on the doorstep, but Mrs. Bishop would be on her way and Nero Wolfe's doorstep was no place for conjugal melodrama. 

"If you'll take a seat in the front room," I said, waving him in and helping him off with his well-tailored coat, "I'll consult with Mr. Wolfe and see if we can accommodate your request. Coffee?"

He stared at me for five whole seconds while the gears behind his drooping black eyes creaked along. At last: "Yes. Please." 

I deposited him in a chair and stepped to the kitchen to ask Fritz to supply the gentleman in the front room with all the coffee he could drink. Then I got Wolfe on the house phone. 

His "Good morning!" was curt. That was to be expected. 

"Good morning. A complication: Mrs. Bishop's husband would also like to hire you to investigate the Cooke and Spencer murders. He appears distressed." 

"Appears? Where is he?"

"In our front room, gulping coffee if he remembers how or else passed out. I didn't put him in the office because—"

"You may as well." 

"Okay, good. And Mrs. Bishop? He knows we're expecting her."

"You may as well," he repeated, in a less sanguine tone. "You'll be on hand to quash any disturbance. I'll give them a chance to explain themselves." 

That was decent of him. Though I did notice he was giving himself a choice of clients, which could prove awkward. Twenty minutes later, all four of us at our places in the office, Hilda Bishop, who had arrived at 11:02, was finding it awkward as well. 

"But Tommy, darling, you want to hire Mr. Wolfe to prove I'm a murderess, of _course_ we can't be here together." 

She had light blue eyes that looked ready to overflow to match her voice but never quite did. For the rest, she looked like she'd once been told she was heartbreakingly beautiful—which was possibly true—and she had decided from then on to work at it. As the first in time prospective client, she was occupying the red leather chair at the end of Wolfe's desk. 

"For God's sake, Hilda," Bishop pleaded. Come to think of it, adulterer or no, he had probably fed her the heartbreaking line. The pot of coffee in him was keeping his spine straight and his eyes wide. "I don't think you killed those men. I'd never think that. I only—"

"Mr. Bishop, please!" Wolfe held up a palm. "Mrs. Bishop, I'm as eager as you can be to extricate us all from this muddle. When you phoned last night you made the highly interesting claim that Amos Cooke and Northrup Spencer were killed by the same person. I expect you to account convincingly for that claim. But first I'd like to settle a point: your husband's presence here suggests you were less than candid when you told Mr. Goodwin that the murders had nothing to do with your well-publicized marital difficulties. Mr. Bishop, how did you know your wife would be here this morning?"

Mrs. Bishop answered firmly before her husband could catch up: "Easy. I told him." She didn't say anything else, also firmly. 

"I see," Wolfe said. "Now. Will you explain your business here, madam, or must we send Mr. Bishop away first?" 

"No, Tommy can tell you about it better than I can. It's my fault. Though you never should have agreed!" she said, quickly darting her eyes towards her husband, then to me, then back to Wolfe. 

A muscle in Bishop's cheek twitched. Otherwise he didn't stir. 

"He wasn't unfaithful," Hilda Bishop said, choking on it more than she had on the idea that her husband wanted to stitch her up for murder. "I was. The divorce is all on my account. So I could marry—"

"Marsh." It was Bishop who said it, and it was quiet and more than halfway to a question.

"Howard Marsh," Mrs. Bishop agreed. "But Robbie, Roberta, that's my baby sister, she went to Tommy with this deal, and Tommy went along with it out of chivalry. He arranged to—to create evidence for me to use against him. So I wouldn't be embarrassed." Her chin went up, defiant. "He hired a prostitute to go to a hotel with him so—"

"Remarkable," Wolfe interrupted. "A most unusual manifestation of chivalry, but we'll let it pass." His lips tightened. He was on the point of throwing them both out, and under the circumstances I wouldn't have blamed him. It was not a pretty picture. He controlled himself, however, which was when I had my first inkling that he was onto something. "Where do Cooke and Spencer come in?" 

"Tommy had better tell you about that." 

Wolfe's eyes went to Bishop. 

"I'm only mostly a fool," Bishop said, with a self-deprecating smile that made you want to slug him but peel him off the ground and buy him a drink after. "I was never alone with the young woman. I spent the night playing poker with three old friends, men with unassailable reputations, who could act as witnesses if Roberta's pet lawyers didn't keep to the terms she had arranged. They didn't, of course. My witnesses were Amos Cooke, a lawyer with a family practice; Dr. Northrup Spencer, a respected academic; and Dr. Vince Iversen, a celebrated surgeon." 

"Two of whom have been murdered within the last week," Wolfe said, with a certain grim satisfaction. "The police have no reason to connect these murders, but we assume for the purposes of this discussion that they are motivated by a desire to protect Mrs. Bishop's position in the divorce proceedings. I see why you came to me, madam. I observe that you misled us last night." He turned to me. "Archie. What terms did Mrs. Bishop use over the phone?"

He knew perfectly well, since I had repeated the conversation to him, but I was happy to oblige. "She said she knew that you didn't touch divorce cases, and that this wasn't about that, it was much more important."

"It _is_ more important," Mrs. Bishop insisted. "I know how it looks for me, and there's another man in danger."

"That would be Dr. Iversen," Wolfe said. "Is he aware of his presumed peril?" 

Bishop answered. "We've talked. He's...gone away." No one could have missed his harassed look at his wife. "He won't be back until it's time for him to give evidence." 

"You _do_ think I did it," Hilda said softly. 

Before Tommy could protest, Wolfe cut in. His eyebrows had gone up at the mention of Iversen scooting, but he had no client yet and wasn't about to waste time going into details before securing one. "It is useless to continue without making a decision. Will one of you cede voluntarily to the other, or must I choose for myself?" 

They looked at each other. It was a strange look to see passing between two people doing their damnedest to get unhitched. After a moment I turned my attention to my toes to give them a bit of privacy, then looked up when I heard Mrs. Bishop clearing her throat. She got to her feet and looked down at Wolfe, who scowled. I could have told her to skip the theatrics; he hates looking up at people. 

"I don't care which one of us it is, and it had probably better be Tommy. But I didn't kill them." 

Bishop didn't answer, or look at her. 

"Do you accept, sir?" Wolfe asked. 

Bishop nodded. His jaw was trembling. 

"Archie, please show Mrs. Bishop—"

He was interrupted by the doorbell ringing.

**III**

The Bishops froze in place. I was already rising and completed the movement, then looked at Wolfe. 

He nodded. "Go see who it is, Archie." 

There were two of them together this time, one female and one male, both about thirty years old, but that was where the similarities ended. She was neat, willowy, well-tailored and well-scrubbed, with a long thin face and a focused, peevish expression; her reddish-brown hair was expensively though not stylishly bobbed. He was broad-shouldered, with middling brown hair and eyes, and the look of a man realizing he'd made a wrong turn; there was a hat clutched to his chest that I regretfully concluded had to belong to him. 

I opened the door a crack. Before I had asked their business, the man mumbled what might have been words, if he had bothered opening his mouth first. 

The woman flicked her gray eyes towards him, sniffed, and began. "I'm Roberta DeVries, of DeVries and Fineman, the architectural firm. My sister's in there, isn't she? I have to get in there and stop her." Another sniff. "The buffoon is Howard Marsh." 

Marsh cringed; there is simply no better word for it. "Roberta, are you sure I have to be here? Mother won't like it. She said I'd offend Nero Wolfe." 

I wondered whether his mother had been working from general principles or specific knowledge of Wolfe, then turned my attention to the architect. She looked like her head was screwed on too well to have come up with that shenanigan the Bishops had just been offending Wolfe with, but then most people are silly about something, and for Roberta DeVries the something may well have been her sister. "Listen, Miss DeVries, this is Nero Wolfe's house, as you clearly know, and you don't do anything in it, or get in, unless he says so. Wait there, please." 

I was not displeased: without Wolfe having been forced to lift a finger, our top two suspects, barring Mrs. Bishop, had delivered themselves to us. Now of course we had to figure out what to do with them, but that wasn't my job. 

Back in the office, the Bishops did not appear to have so much as breathed. I went up to Wolfe's desk. "What would you like me to do with Miss Roberta DeVries and Mr. Howard Marsh?"

Wolfe scowled. His eyes went to Hilda Bishop. "Your doing again, madam?"

She shook her head, and Tommy Bishop growled, "Don't talk to my wife that way. It's my fault. I phoned Roberta this morning. It was only fair, since I knew," when his wife put her fingers delicately to her forehead and closed her eyes. 

Wolfe asserted control. "Mr. Bishop, you had just resolved to hire me to investigate the Cooke and Spencer murders. I will accept a check for ten thousand dollars now, and we'll commence." 

There was no resisting him when he spoke in that voice, and Bishop's hands were reaching for his pocketbook before his brain knew it. In one beat the check was written out, signed, and shut into a drawer of my desk. 

"Bring those people in here, Archie." 

I hurried to obey. From the office I heard Mrs. Bishop begin to remonstrate and Wolfe quash her.

"About time," muttered Howard Marsh when the door was opened. 

Miss DeVries held out her wrap without looking at me and marched towards the office. I let Marsh put away his own hat and scrambled to be there to make introductions. There had been a rearrangement: Bishop had the red leather chair, and Mrs. Bishop was in a yellow chair next to him. I added two more in an arc towards my desk and after a moment's consideration seated the two DeVries sisters together for comparison: Roberta was four years younger and looked like a schoolgirl beside Hilda. That left Marsh closest to me, leaning back and forward to crane around Miss DeVries for a look at his paramour. 

Wolfe got the show started. "I won't thank you for your intemperate arrival, Miss DeVries, Mr. Marsh, but we may yet find a way to make use of it. Why don't you each tell me briefly what you thought you would accomplish by rushing over here? Miss DeVries, let's start with you." 

Roberta DeVries gave her shoulders a shake and sat up even straighter. "I came to make sure Hilda didn't do anything foolish. I'm responsible for her. Our father left his money to me, though I'm the youngest, because he expected me to look after Hilda. I've been doing a bad enough job." 

Mrs. Bishop murmured, "Oh, Robbie, really." 

Wolfe ignored it. "I won't argue with your assessment, madam. I'd like to clarify a point, though: what do you mean you father left the money to you?"

"Exactly that, or near enough. Fifty thousand was left in trust to Hilda, with me and my father's lawyer as trustees, and Hilda can't touch the capital without our consent. The residue of the estate went to me. It came in handy. I couldn't have reached my position in my profession without a great deal of money." She gave a thin smile. 

"Thank you. Mr. Marsh, now. You wish to marry Mrs. Bishop when she has been severed from her husband?"

As I had already observed, Marsh took a while to get started. We waited through his gulping and throat-clearing. Finally: "I'm only here because Roberta dragged me. She _threatened_ me. But anyway, what you said, that's the idea. She's a great girl, Hilda." 

Mrs. Bishop's performance at this juncture did her credit: she looked neither mortified nor moved. The overflowing eyes were fixed steadily on Wolfe. 

"Just what is happening here, please?" Roberta DeVries asked. 

"Mr. Bishop has hired me to investigate the murders of Amos Cooke and Northrup Spencer. That's what is happening." 

"Tommy did?" Miss DeVries raised her brows at her brother-in-law. "Well, well."

"I believe you're both aware of the connection between those men and the group assembled here, and therefore it will come as no surprise that I consider you both, along with Mrs. Bishop, suspects." 

A point: they both laughed, Miss DeVries derisively and Marsh half-hysterically. 

Wolfe continued. "If you are all unengaged for the rest of the day, we may have this question settled by dinnertime." 

They may have thought he was joking or showing off; I knew him too well to go for that: he was serious as a dose of poison, or two bullets. He had something, the fat son-of-a-gun. I set myself to catching up, beginning with a long look at each of the players, not excepting the client; it told me nothing new. 

Wolfe had each of them in turn account for themselves in their own terms. He never liked to monkey around with alibis, but Roberta DeVries was the only designated suspect who didn't try to supply any. Hilda Bishop had been asleep in the Bishops' country house when Dr. Spencer was shot and at a fashion show in the city on the afternoon Cooke was poisoned; she took it calmly when Wolfe pointed out that the poison may have been introduced much earlier in the day. Howard Marsh had been away on a weekend party starting the morning of Cooke's death, and when Spencer was murdered on the Upper West Side, he had been having car trouble across town, as two friends and any number of city employees would testify. When Wolfe asked Miss DeVries why she had chosen not to join the general trend, she shrugged and said, "It wouldn't help." I decided then that it couldn't be her: even Wolfe wouldn't have been so confident about pinning a couple of murders on that number. 

"And you, Mr. Bishop? Do you also wish to supply your whereabouts during the murders?"

"Me? But I—why would—"

"Tommy couldn't have killed them!" Hilda Bishop protested. "Why would he? Leave him alone, you big bully!"

"Madam, that was uncalled for. I was inviting your husband's contribution, not leveling an accusation. However, if it is motive you want, I'm sure we can oblige. Archie? Can you invent one?"

Translation: it was obvious enough you didn't need a genius to spot it. One of these days he was going to put me on the spot and get a result he didn't like. 

I turned to Bishop. "Yeah, all right. You chose your three witnesses yourself, Mr. Bishop?"

"I did."

"There you are. The whole thing's a setup. You didn't pick those men because they're pillars of society, you picked them because they had something on you and you wanted to off them without raising any eyebrows. If you don't like that, you did it to frame your wife, or her lover, out of jealousy. How am I doing?"

"You're ridiculous," Mrs. Bishop said, no longer indignant but bitter. 

"Those will do to go on with," Wolfe said, and I returned to my notes.

**IV**

We ended up having them to lunch. Wolfe, despite the sacrifice involved, made himself charming about the space race, and the four guests were on their best behavior. The DeVries sisters played up best, though Howard Marsh was the one who did honor to the suckling pig and the omelet Fritz had cooked up to make the portions stretch. Tommy Bishop was quiet, but when he did speak it was to the point. I was as proud of all of them as if I'd roped them in myself. 

We went on for another hour after lunch, filling in details about the victims and the prospective third victim. Wolfe asked blandly whether Dr. Iversen was a habitual coward, or if his flight was out of character; Miss DeVries, who seemed to know more about Bishop's friends than he did, intimated that Dr. Iversen had jumped on the threat to his life as an opportunity to escape from a difficult domestic situation. 

When the hour was up, Fritz came in to say there was a caller waiting for Wolfe in the kitchen. 

"Of course," Wolfe said smoothly. "I had forgotten. I'll have to leave you for a time, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Brenner will stay to make sure you're comfortable. Archie, come. I may need you." 

Before stepping away from his desk he took an envelope from it and put it in his pocket. I was pretty sure no one else saw him do it, because all eyes had turned towards me when I had been named. A simple but effective bit of theater. 

There was no caller in the kitchen, of course. Wolfe had hung back after lunch to instruct Fritz to give us a pretext to get away. We sat on stools at the counter, me comfortably and Wolfe less so. It was the first chance we'd had to talk privately since the show had started, and I had expected instructions or reflections, but he left it to me to start. 

"Are we all set to nab one of them? I could phone Cramer and schedule a pick-up." 

"Not just yet," Wolfe said mildly. So he _was_ close. "You like them," he accused, giving me the eye.

"Who?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Bishop."

"Nuts. I don't like anybody. Especially not those two saps. What the hell are they getting divorced for?"

"The same reason they were married, I presume—to line the pockets of a gaggle of lawyers."

"I could pity the lawyers. If they were any more eager to defend each other's honor we'd have a third murder right here." 

He shuddered. "I hope not. They've had the misfortune to run afoul of your romantic sensibilities, that's plain enough. You've watched them and concluded that they're in love—that madness is evident, they don't have the sense to keep it hidden. Do you expect that to be sufficient, though? Love—it may be a justification, I won't quarrel with that, but it is hardly enough to keep two people happy in each other's orbits, day in and day out, with all internal and external pressures to contend with. Perhaps a separation, seeing each other distress, is what it takes to force them past the obfuscations of their own egos."

I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it. It hadn't escaped my notice that his speech had ceased to be about the Bishops partway in, and there was no answer I could give that wouldn't have taken us straight to a conversation it would have been inconvenient to have just then. Of course he knew that: he had deliberately dropped this conversational tidbit in such a way that I couldn't immediately pick it up. What I had opened my mouth to say had been: "I didn't think I'd been gone that long." Which was no good at all, from the practical standpoint. Finally, I said, "So are you going to tell me what's in the envelope, or am I supposed to guess?"

"It came while you were away." Funny how it was almost an answer to what I hadn't said. He produced the envelope. 

I took it and examined it. It was addressed to both of us, Mr. Nero Wolfe and Mr. Archie Goodwin, handwritten in firm block print. The return address was stamped in red ink: Isobel Marsh Interiors, Scarsdale, New York. He hadn't opened it, so I did. Inside was a flyer with a couple of pictures of well-lit rooms, a letter, and two business cards, all in the same subdued style. The letter was written or at least signed by Isobel Marsh herself, confessing a deep admiration for the art of detecting and a desire to be useful to us in her professional capacity. 

Wolfe hardly glanced at it. "Get Mrs. Marsh on the phone for me, Archie." 

I grinned down at the letter. There was a coincidence for you! I wondered when he'd thought of it—and when he'd decided to lead into it the way he had. 

I dialed the number on the letterhead. 

A hard, practical voice answered. "Isobel Marsh Interiors." 

"Is that Mrs. Marsh?"

"No. Who's calling?"

"Nero Wolfe wants to thank Mrs. Marsh for her very kind letter." 

"Of course. Hold the line." 

Out of curiosity I kept an eye on my watch: seventy-eight seconds after I was put on hold, a different voice spoke, this one soft and flowery. 

"This is Isobel Marsh. Mr. Wolfe?"

"Archie Goodwin, actually. I appreciate the letter, too, but it's Mr. Wolfe who wants to speak to you. Hold it." 

I passed the phone to Wolfe. 

"Mrs. Marsh?...Yes....And yourself, madam. I was reviewing the materials you sent me and happened to remember you had done some work for Dr. Northrup Spencer, isn't that so?...Very tragic....The breakfast nook, that was it. Uncommonly tasteful." 

I had my elbow on the counter and my chin in my hand and was observing with real pleasure. Taking whatever he was getting from her, he made it sound like he had walked every square inch of Spencer's Interior by Isobel Marsh, and then, inevitably, of Amos Cooke's house, Wolfe agreeing that it was a pity the money had run out before Mrs. Marsh could start on the guest room. A remark about Cooke's children—there were three, the eldest having been quoted in the paper—was all it took to start Mrs. Marsh on her son. I heard her voice rising as Wolfe moved the receiver further and further from his ear. Fortunately she didn't require any intelligent responses on the topic of "my Howard," who gave his hard-working mother nothing but grief, and whose recent show of interest in her business had come to nothing. 

When Wolfe had exited the conversation without making any promises and hung up, I said, "Should I find out exactly when his car broke down Tuesday? We can leave it to the police to chase down the hackie who took him across town." 

"I think not. Indeed I doubt very much he was ever across town with a broken car. That doesn't appear to be Mr. Marsh's kind of lie."

"So the cops and the friends he mentioned?"

"He may have thought I wouldn't follow up on a sufficiently brazen fabrication. Or, what's more likely, he may not have thought at all. How is your shoulder?"

I rotated it and grunted. "It'll do."

"Good. Then we won't need to invite Mr. Cramer." 

"I'm flattered, but what about after I've knocked him flat? Is he going to get up and deliver himself to the cops and confess?"

"I expect so." 

"Oh. I'll be sorry to miss that." 

"You'll have the satisfaction of being the motive force behind it. Here is my thought. You may add any flourishes you deem appropriate."

**V**

It was twenty minutes to four when we returned to the office. The DeVries girls had been talking with their heads together and cut it out as soon as they heard us approach; Roberta had a gin and tonic, half-drunk, in her hand. Marsh had also taken advantage of Wolfe's hospitality: he was gripping a nearly empty snifter. Tommy Bishop had been leaning back in the red leather chair with his eyes closed and only got himself upright when Wolfe was settled back at his desk. 

"I'm sorry. That took longer than I anticipated. I trust you haven't been bored. At four o'clock it is my invariable routine to retreat upstairs to look after my orchids. You are all invited to accompany me for a tour. If my assurance that they are well worth seeing isn't enough, you may apply to Mr. Goodwin for a less biased view. Otherwise, you're welcome to leave then, provided you engage to return at six. I haven't given up hope of resolving this before dinner."

"We don't have anything left to say," Mrs. Bishop said, smiling faintly. "Not any of us."

"I doubt that, but I can supply the talk if needed. I do have a question for you, madam, as it happens. You may consider it an impertinence and refuse to answer, and I am not altogether convinced it will prove relevant to the murders: how did you and Mr. Marsh first meet?"

The smile turned sour and one-sided. It was the least deliberate expression I'd seen so far on her well-arranged face. "We were at a party Howard's mother was throwing—Isobel Marsh, the decorator. All our friends were using her, she was everywhere. Robbie was invited, really, but she can't stand the woman—sorry, Howard—and brought me along as a buffer. Tommy isn't really one for parties, and I was happy to get out..." She shrugged. "I don't mind talking about it, but I don't see how it will help." 

"It may not," Wolfe admitted. "I'm indulging some personal curiosity. You see, I had made the connection between Mr. Marsh and his mother. She recently sent me a letter advertising her professional services, and I phoned her to discuss some work she had done lately. I understand your mother's business has been booming of late, Mr. Marsh." 

"Mother's great," Marsh answered, in a voice that creaked. "I'm always wishing I could do something for her. You can't go wrong if you need to do up a room. I'm no good, I have no eye at all, but everyone says Mother's a genius." 

He looked so bad I thought for a moment we wouldn't even need the rest of the program and tensed in case he bolted, but he got his color and some poise back by the end of his speech and the awkward moment was past. At a few minute to four Wolfe asked what they had all decided to do, and they responded as if scripted: Tommy and Hilda Bishop each started to accept his invitation, clammed up, and motioned to defer to the other. I was disgusted, and so was Roberta DeVries, who said she had better come, too, if they were going. Howard Marsh looked around the room, then said he had to phone his mother and would certainly be back by six. 

"Of course," Wolfe said. "Mr. Goodwin will be here, if you return earlier, or if any of you," to the others, "tire of flowers." Not that he wasn't going to make damn sure they didn't, and anyhow my opinion of those three wasn't low enough to believe they would've tired if it had been left to them. 

It all went smoothly. Wolfe and three of the guests went up to the plant rooms; Marsh left by the front door. I helped Fritz neaten the office and let him in on the plan. 

"You can let him in when he gets here," I told him, "and then don't come in unless I ring. This could be tricky." 

"You'll handle it, Archie. I'm not worried. It's Mr. Wolfe's plan." 

That it was, with room for adlibbing by yours truly. 

Soon there was nothing left to do but prepare a gun and leave it in a drawer of my desk, and I did that. Then I picked out a piece of mail from the pile I had made that morning, letters I could answer without Wolfe's participation, and got to work. I only had ten minutes to wait; he was jumpy. 

"Is Mrs. Marsh well?" I asked, after he'd been shown in and taken the same yellow chair that had been his before. 

"Um? Oh, yes. Mother didn't have time to talk. I hope I'm not annoying you, Mr. Goodwin, but to tell you the truth, I wanted to talk to you." 

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather wait for Mr. Wolfe to be through upstairs?"

"No, no, I don't think he'd be sympathetic." He tried for a sly smile. "He isn't, is he? Very sympathetic." 

I kept my face neutral. "It isn't a highly prized quality in a private detective. For that matter maybe I'm not very sympathetic, either. What was it you wanted, Mr. Marsh?" 

"Well, I've...I've got myself into a jam." 

I nodded and looked inviting. We had decided, Wolfe and I, that his performance thus far showed a tendency to brazen it out when cornered. Given a sharp scare—Wolfe bringing up Mrs. Marsh—and an opening—me alone in the office—he would leap without looking. 

Marsh leaped. "I had to be sure Hilda would get the money. I don't know if you can understand. It's Mother. She's always saying she has to hustle just to get by, and she can't put anything away and she doesn't know what'll happen when it's time for her to retire—and there's my allowance to pay, and she's always getting behind..." He came up short. "But don't think I haven't got any money! Hilda asked Roberta to give me as much as I needed to start this business I'm thinking of setting up, I could get fifteen or maybe twenty thousand, easy. I'd need some to go away on, but you could have the rest."

He was inclined to go on, but I raised one brow at him until he subsided. "Let me see if I have it straight. You're telling me you killed Cooke and Spencer, and you want to pay me to—what?"

"To help me. I can tell you what I've done so far—and you'll tell me how I can cover it up. And you could help keep Nero Wolfe away from me, at least until I got clear. Come on, Mr. Goodwin, I'm desperate." 

I wanted to tell him he'd been born desperate, but it wouldn't have done any good. I did not have to try hard to be revolted. "Brother, you've got the wrong guy. The best I could do for you is give you a five-minute head start before going up to talk to Mr. Wolfe, and that's because I'd like to get through this work you interrupted." 

"But—but—I've confessed to you! I can't leave if you don't promise not to tell!" 

"You might have thought about that before confessing. Anyhow, it's your lookout. I'm just the errand boy, and I've told you what my next errand is." I pointed upstairs, in case he was having trouble keeping up. 

I was ready for him, and though he had the advantage of a seated target, he wasn't good enough to get anywhere with it. I don't claim unambiguously that I could have taken him one-handed, but with one bum shoulder it still wasn't much of a contest. In under thirty seconds he was on the floor with my knee in his back. 

"All right, quit wailing, will you behave if I let you up?"

He nodded frantically.

I got my knee up, hauled him to his feet, and dropped him back into his chair. He gulped air and patted his limbs for damage, of which there wasn't any; that was important for the next stage of the proceedings. 

I remained standing. "That wasn't very smart, but I acknowledge you'd had a shock." 

"What can I do?" he gasped, staring up at me.

I was cold. "You've dug yourself in too deep. There's nothing for it but to turn yourself in and hope for clemency." 

"My mother..."

"Oh, can it. Your mother's the one you should be thinking of. She'll find out about this, but it's your choice how. Maybe she reads in the paper how her boy listened to the dictates of his conscience and threw himself on the mercy of the justice system. Or, if you run, maybe she hears on the radio that the police have gunned you down in the street like a dog, or rumbled you in some godforsaken squat." I admit my imagery was verging on picturesque; I was provoked. "Do you really want to put your mother through that?"

"No. No, I—"

"Then what do you have to do?"

"Confess. I have to—"

"Right." I contained my feelings and clapped him on the shoulder. "You go straight to Manhattan Homicide West and ask for Sergeant Stebbins. Say Archie Goodwin sends his regards. You got that?" He nodded, but I gave it to him again. "I'll call you a cab. And if I don't hear you've confessed by tomorrow morning, I go to Mr. Wolfe, and then it starts. Don't kid yourself that you've got what it takes outrun him. Got it?" He nodded. "And next time, if there's a next time, don't go for the throat. You haven't got the makings of a strangler." 

I did not kick him down the front steps, but I did watch him get into his cab and note the license number, in case. Then I went back to the office, picked up my chair and righted it, and sat down to wait. You might imagine I was worrying Marsh would tell the hackie to take him straight to the airport and skip, but actually my mind wasn't even on the job. I was rolling over what Wolfe had said when we had been alone in the kitchen.

**VI**

They had come downstairs and arranged themselves in their seats, Wolfe had rung for beer and Fritz had brought it, and I had communicated that Mr. Marsh had stopped in to say he had an appointment elsewhere and wouldn't be returning, when the phone rang. 

"Nero Wolfe's office, Archie—"

A raspy voice cut me off: "That you, Goodwin?"

I was silent. 

"What's this new trick of Wolfe's? We haven't finished cleaning up after the last one." 

"You'll have to explain that, Inspector." 

"Don't be smart. Howard Marsh of Scarsdale just waltzed in here, used your name as a passkey and confessed to two murders." 

"Did he? That's very interesting." 

"What did Wolfe do to him?"

I was firm but not unreasonable. "You'll have to explain that one, too, so I know whether I need to get offended. If, on account of something Mr. Wolfe said, Mr. Marsh suddenly saw the light and rushed to unburden himself, I don't see what business the NYPD has getting sore about it. Do you think his confession is false?"

"No, damn it, he knows details we kept out of the papers. He's it, all right."

"Well, then?"

Cramer uttered a number of ill-considered words. 

"I see," I told him stiffly. I was working to keep an appropriately grave mien. "Would you like to speak to Mr. Wolfe? I can of course convey your gratitude—"

He hung up. 

There was perfect silence, and every eye in the room was on me as I cradled the phone. Tommy Bishop was open-mouthed; Hilda Bishop had her hand at her throat, limp and forgotten; Roberta DeVries slowly turned her eyes away from me towards Wolfe. "You did this?"

Wolfe was modest. "I contrived it. It was Mr. Goodwin who executed it with his customary aplomb while we were upstairs." 

I did not take a bow, but I would have been justified if I had. 

Hilda Bishop shot to her feet and stood swaying a little with one hand outstretched towards the back of her husband's chair, not touching it. "I want to leave now," she said, quietly. 

We had Bishop's check, and when Wolfe asked him if he wanted the details from me he flinched and said no; there was no reason for them to stay, so they cleared out. Miss DeVries insisted on shaking my hand on her way out the door. Bishop hadn't spoken more than two words since my chat with Cramer, and the other one had been his wife's name. I watched all three of them to Tenth Avenue, where he flagged a cab and held the door for the others before climbing in himself. 

I returned to the office and my chair. Wolfe drained his glass of beer, leaned back in his chair, and said, "Archie. Report." 

My brows went up. "What for? It's all over, aside from taking Bishop's check to the bank. Besides, it all went how you said, not counting my flourishes." 

"Mr. Cramer may think better of his fit of temper and ask to speak to me after all. I want to be prepared for him." 

"Yes, sir. It's too bad Bishop didn't want to hear it, isn't it?" 

He grunted. He couldn't have answered any other way without being forced to acknowledge that he'd asked me to report to have the pleasure of congratulating me afterwards. It wasn't that his reason wasn't plausible, it was that I didn't buy it and I wanted to be damn sure he knew I didn't. Still, it didn't hurt me any to report my own cleverness, though when I got to my threatening speech to Marsh, Wolfe's lips quirked, and I knew he shared my appraisal of my imagery. Apart from that, he made no sign that he listening, though I knew better. When I was through he opened his eyes and said, "Satisfactory." 

He could have been talking about my performance, or the report itself, or even the fact that I'd gone along with his dodge without riding him too much over it. There were no questions about my shoulder, which was just as well, since I didn't want to lie and would rather have chewed the whole arm off than admit that the exertion hadn't suited it. I kept from shifting around for a more comfortable position for it only because I had already ascertained there wasn't one. 

When I was sure he wouldn't say anything else, I rejoined. "Ten thousand in under twenty-four hours, for the cost of one lunch and a tour of the plant rooms. It's not too shabby. Of course there was a little worry involved on my end." 

"Oh?" He was suspicious. 

"Sure. I had a good feeling about Marsh, but what if we'd been wrong about him, or one of those three had put him up to it? I could have been letting you wander around chatting odontoglossums to a raving murderer."

He grunted. "You had no such worry. However, you've made your point, and I commend you for it. Archie, for whatever good it will do you to hear it, I acknowledge that I was concerned for your well-being while you were away." Gruffly: "It's not unprecedented." 

That he was even playing was worthy of note, but then I had his remarkable piece of speech-making in the kitchen to go off; I'd had a reasonable expectation, what amounted to an invitation to try my luck. 

I got to my feet, circled around to his side of the desk, and got comfortable leaning back against it, close enough that he moved his empty glass away as if he was concerned I would bump it. I crossed my arms and faced the whole mountain of him. He was watching me warily with his eyes narrowed to slits. 

"I could quit for the evening," I offered, "if that'd help. Of course then you'd have to invite me to dinner, I wouldn't feel welcome otherwise, and maybe you could call me Mr. Goodwin for a bit—"

"Shut up. Comedian."

Damned if he wasn't smiling, or as close to it as he ever came. 

"I'm glad this is fun for you. It's a hell of a spot for me. I was all set for noble suffering, since no one ever suffered more comfortably than living in this house and eating three meals a day by Fritz Brenner. Sure, I'd have to be completely brainless to have missed the drift of your little narrative about absence making the heart grow fonder—"

"Pfui. I never uttered such an inanity." 

"Excuse me. I must have misunderstood. Forget it. I'm not the one who thought we needed to have a talk and went to all that trouble. I can keep my mouth shut. So forget it." 

"Archie." 

During the years I'd lived in that house and worked for him, I'd heard him pronounce my name thousands of times in as many shades of mood, from anger to amusement to resignation. This was a new one. I uncrossed my arms. If he had been anyone else I wouldn't have stopped there, but then had he been anyone else we wouldn't have been in that position. 

He raised his hand and gripped my arm above my elbow. I shifted closer, until my leg was touching his. He didn't try to move away, or make a face. We kept our eyes on each other and didn't say anything at all. 

Moments like that can't last, and that one didn't, but it was not for a while, after he had told me to go sit down already, that we were able to settle back to the old domestic tableau: him with his book, me with my accounts, contributing remarks. 

But I'll tell you, the dinner conversation that evening was thrilling.


End file.
